


Maybe Somewhat Out Of The Ordinary

by sweetNsimple



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Harrison Wells Is A Dick, Humor, Leonard Is A Dick, M/M, Romance, Vampires, Werewolves, no powers au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 22:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7125097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“That’s not a wolf,” Barry told Cisco, pretty convinced except for the small voice in the back of his mind that had been screaming at him for the past four months that there was a predator very close by.  “That’s my dog.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe Somewhat Out Of The Ordinary

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Кое-что невозможное](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8314594) by [PrettyPenny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyPenny/pseuds/PrettyPenny)



Barry didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary at first.  Sure, he got a few strange looks, some very concerned strangers, and some really fascinated children running up to him, but, overall, everything was good.

It was just him and his dog that happened to look a lot like a wolf.  But Captain Cold couldn’t be a wolf – there were no wolves in Central City.  And since Barry had found him on the streets, Captain Cold had to be a dog.

He was probably a hybrid or a mix or a mongrel or something.  Could be anything, really.

But a wolf? 

No way.

Captain Cold was just a dog.  Just a very large, very furry dog with penetrating blue eyes – which was another sign that he wasn’t a wolf because wolves didn’t _have_ blue eyes – and the uncanny ability of making all other dogs shy away when they went on walks – and, by walks, Barry meant that Captain Cold got out the leash, put the collar on Barry’s wrist, and took _Barry_ for a walk. 

It was weird, but dogs could do that, right?  Dogs were smart.  Captain Cold was _very_ smart. Probably also really grateful, which was why he hadn’t run away in the four months he had been with Barry.  And Barry _knew_ he could escape whenever he wanted to.  He’d been concerned the first few times he had come home to his apartment door wide open and Captain Cold lounging in the archway, giving him a faintly disdainful look that said – as was always true – ‘You’re late’, but also said, ‘Useless human’, which Barry was pretty sure he was not imagining and that he also found unfair. 

It had taken several weeks before he realized that Captain Cold knew how to open doors. 

“What a smart dog,” he told Captain Cold, hands buried in his thick white and gray fur, rubbing behind his ears and in his ruff.  Captain Cold seemed to deal with the affection more than enjoy it, but, honestly?

Barry knew he loved it.  He had a few faint fang marks on his wrists from times he had stopped petting Captain Cold and had gotten nipped for, what he assumed the dog thought, “being lazy”. 

But, to digress, Barry didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary at first.

He had found a dog on the streets, mangy looking and with the weirdest injuries – like someone had purposely shot the dog with – and he knew this from having to dig slivers of it out of Captain Cold’s hide – silver projectiles that had exploded on contact, leaving shrapnel throughout Captain Cold’s body – and had brought the mass of fur and fangs to his home so that he could do his best with a pair of tweezers and a package of turkey slices. 

Captain Cold, even covered in mud and with patches of fur missing, had seemed awfully offended by the cheap lunch meat. 

But, really? 

Normal.

Just a dog.

“Dude, that’s a wolf.”  Cisco pointed accusingly at Captain Cold, who glared coldly – the origin of his namesake, actually – back at him.  “That is an actual, no-joke wolf.  Why do you have a wolf in your apartment?”

“That’s not a wolf,” Barry told Cisco, pretty convinced except for the small voice in the back of his mind that had been screaming at him for the past four months that there was a predator very close by.  “That’s my dog.”

“Yeah, no, that’s a _wolf_.”  And then Cisco whipped out his smartphone, pulled up Google Images, and proceeded to shove dozens of pictures of wolves in his face.  “This is a wolf,” he pointed at his phone.  Then he pointed at Captain Cold, “and that is a wolf.  Wolf.  Wolf.  See the family resemblance?”

“No way, Cisco,” Barry said, still half convinced but losing conviction.  “I found Captain Cold on the streets.  There aren’t any wild wolves in Central City and the zoo never mentioned any animals getting out.  He’s a dog.”

“No, Barry.”  Cisco grasped him by the shoulder and got level with him, as if this was an intervention.  “That is a wolf.  That is a wolf and, oh my God, I think he wants to eat me.”

Captain Cold licked his chops and bared his teeth.

When he did that, he did look somewhat hungry for human flesh.

“Maybe half-wolf,” Barry conceded.  “So, still a dog.”

“No, no, no, _no_ – that is a full-blooded _wolf_.”

“Hybrid,” Barry bargained.  “Maybe three quarters wolf?”

“ _Barry_.”

“There’s dog in there somewhere,” Barry told him.  “Captain Cold _is_ a dog.”

“Fine, Barry!  He’s a dog!  Your wolf is a dog!  Your dog looks like a wolf, probably howls like a wolf, and will probably hunt me down and kill me like a wolf when I leave!  But he’s _just_ a dog.”

“He won’t hunt you down,” Barry said, probably the only thing he could think of in reply to that.  “I mean, he knows how to open doors, but there is no way he eats people.”

Cisco groaned.

“Captain Cold is a good dog, he won’t hunt you down.”

Cisco groaned louder.

“Famous last words,” he muttered.  “See you again never – except maybe when they call you to the scene of the crime and what’s left of my body is strewn all over a dark alleyway somewhere.”

“That won’t be Captain Cold’s fault.”

It most likely would not be Captain Cold’s fault.  However, Captain Cold was doing that strange doggy-smile thing where he showed off way too many teeth as he stared intently at Cisco.

It probably would not be Captain Cold’s fault.

~::~

The thing was, the dog situation was a little out of the ordinary. 

So was Cisco’s situation, though, and Captain Cold didn’t seem to like it at all.

This time, they’re at Cisco’s shoebox apartment with Barry sharing the lumpy couch with a large and strangely shaped metal… _thing_ that may or may not have a forearm that kept trying to reach over and touch his hair. 

Maybe.

Every time the creation whirred, however, robotic extension seeming to inch across the back of the cushion toward Barry, Captain Cold let out a little huff of sound, not quite aggressive enough to be a snarl, but definitely a warning which the robot-box-arm-thing seemed to be able to understand.

“What are you building, exactly?” Barry asked, somewhat shrill.

“You know how Tony Stark has that robot assistant that helps him in the movies?  DUM-E, the mechanical arm?”  Cisco looked up from his computer screens and gave him the most serious, most deadpan expression Barry had seen on the other man in what seemed like _years_.  “I want one.  For science.”  And then he turned back to his work.  The rest of the apartment looked like throwaways from a thrift store, but the computer station tucked into the corner of the living room was high tech with three different screens, a dark wood stand, and a long, complicated-looking keyboard. 

It was funny because Cisco could afford the high tech computer station, better furniture, _and_ a whole house with what he got each month.

But, no.  He stayed here in this crappy one-bedroom apartment.

“The landlady bakes me cookies every Friday night,” Cisco had told him once with a delighted smile.

“My parents hate it,” he had told Barry a different time, fixing the washer in the communal laundry room.

“I’m barely here anyway.  Why spend more for a place to put my computers and a bed?”

These were all solid points – especially the cookies – but Barry still sometimes worried about Cisco.

Someone dating Harrison Wells, the creator and CEO of S.T.A.R. Labs, and who was also one of S.T.A.R. Labs top mechanical engineers, should be able to find a place for their computers and a bed in a place that didn’t look like it should have been condemned five years ago. 

Speaking of which…

“You know how you thought Captain Cold was a wolf?”

“I _know_ Captain Cold is a wolf,” Cisco muttered.

“Well, here’s the thing – it’s about your boyfriend.”

“My partner?” Cisco corrected distractedly.

Harrison Wells probably was too old to be called a _boy_ friend anyway, Barry conceded in his mind.

“Yeah.”

“What about him?”  
“I think he’s a vampire.”

Cisco stopped what he was doing, turned very slowly, and stared at him.  “Barry,” he began very carefully, as if he thought Barry was suddenly about to fall apart.  “You know using drugs is bad… right?”

“I’m not on drugs!”

“You think my partner is a vampire!”

“You think my dog is a wolf!”

“Your dog _is_ a wolf!”

Captain Cold snorted, earning a glare from Cisco.

“Shut up, you don’t get a say in this.”

“Cisco!”  Barry wrapped an arm protectively around Captain Cold’s neck, expression scandalized.  “Don’t tell Captain Cold to shut up.  You shut up.”

“You shut up!”

“Wait.”  Barry held his free hand out in front of him, took a deep breath, and forced himself to calm down while Cisco simmered.  “This is getting us nowhere – your boyfriend is a vampire.”

“Partner.”

“ _That guy you’re screwing_.”

Cisco opened his mouth to fight, thought about it, and then shut it.  “Well, you’re not wrong.  But it’s with _feeling_.”

“Well, feel this – I think he’s a vampire.”

“Okay!  Okay, Barry.  Why do you think my partner is a vampire?”

“Well, he wears an awful lot of sunscreen whenever he goes outside.”

“Have you seen how fair his skin is?”  Cisco rolled his eyes.  “Not everyone has my protective and awesome golden complexion.”

“What about the fact that he never eats in front of us.”

“ _I’ve_ seen him eat.”

“Oh, yeah?”  Barry raised an eyebrow.  “What does he eat?”

“A surprising amount of meat.”  Cisco nodded to himself.  “He really likes Big Belly Burgers.”

“Captain Cold hates him,” Barry told him.  Captain Cold huffed beside him, almost like confirmation.

“Captain Cold hates everyone.  Sometimes, I think he even dislikes you.”

“No, Captain Cold thinks everyone is beneath him – he actively _hates_ Dr. Wells.  I have seen him try to trip Dr. Wells down the stairs, put rat poison in his food, steal his glasses and his keycard, and – _and_ – please don’t hate Captain Cold.”

Now Barry wrapped both arms protectively around his dog, a poor form of defense against the mechanical engineer who looked very close to murder.

“How many times have you seen your _dog_ try to kill my _partner_?”

“I, well, not _that_ many times…”

“You should have told me after the _first_ time.”

“ _And_ ,” Barry pushed on, trying to redirect the conversation.  “Your partner hates Captain Cold too.”  
“ _I_ am beginning to hate Captain Cold.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t seen you ‘drop’ thumbtacks on the ground where Captain Cold is walking or poison his water bowl.”

Cisco was quiet for a long moment.  “What is going on and why is this the first time you’re talking to me about it?”

“Well…”  Barry winced.  “This is kind of another reason why I think Dr. Wells is a vampire.”

“Oh, really?”

“I was going to tell you once, when this all first began, but when I went to talk to you, Dr. Wells appeared out of _nowhere_ behind you.”

“I think I remember this.”  Cisco began nodding, then smiling, then snickering.  “Yeah, how could I forget that _scream_?”

“I didn’t scream because he appeared out of nowhere!” Barry defended himself, feeling his cheeks heat a little.  He couldn’t deny that he had screamed, though.

He would never live that down.

But…

“I screamed because his eyes were _red_.”

Cisco put his face in his hands and groaned.  “So you think you saw his eyes turn red – ”

“They _definitely_ turned red –”

“And that his feud with Captain Cold has something to do with him being a _vampire_?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but consider one more thing – just one more, okay?”

Cisco sighed.  “Okay.  What else?  What other piece of evidence do you have to support your crazy theory that my boyfriend is a vampire?”

“Partner.”  Barry smirked.

“ _Whatever_.”

“The bite marks all over your neck.”  Cisco stilled.  “Seriously, those are not hickeys – there are teeth indentations.  They’re kind of why I’m talking to you now.  They look _really_ bad.”

Cisco stared at him.  “What bite marks?” he whispered.

Captain Cold nipped at the mechanical arm.  The machine, properly chastised, returned to its box-like home.  The mechanical menace now subdued, Captain Cold rolled his eyes toward Cisco and gave him a very dull, unimpressed look.

“What bite marks?!”

~::~

“If my secret is going to be revealed,” Dr. Harrison Wells, creator and CEO of S.T.A.R. Labs, began, “Then perhaps I should let everyone in on another secret in the room.”  And then he looked pointedly at Captain Cold, who stared coldly – hah – back at him.

Captain Cold gave a warning growl, which grew into a snarl.

It worried Barry.  Captain Cold had never been so outwardly aggressive.  He was too smart for that.  He tried to commit murder in subtle ways, like the time he threw his ball at a bee hive while a young couple was walking underneath it at the park. 

Captain Cold was a strange and new sort of dog. 

“Don’t give me that,” Dr. Wells hissed at Captain Cold.  “You have been healed for months now.  There is no more silver in your system – you just don’t want to leave.  You have been pretending to be a dog for _five_ months now.  It’s time you say your goodbyes and go back to your pack.”

“What, what do you mean?” Barry asked.  He crouched down and wrapped an arm around Captain Cold’s neck, feeling something like dread pool in the pit of his belly.  “Captain Cold _is_ a dog.”

“He’s a wolf, Mr. Allen,” Dr. Wells corrected, taking his glasses off to wipe this clean.  Cisco was sitting at a stainless steel table in the center of the room, shell-shocked and staring at his partner as if he had never seen a human face before and could not make sense of it.

Or, maybe mostly human.

Dr. Wells had kind of outed himself as possibly being, well… a vampire.

“Not only is he wolf,” Dr. Wells continued on a soft voice, “He is what your kind call a ‘werewolf’.  And you have been feeding him Diamond brand dog food.”

“It’s good for hunting dogs,” Barry argued numbly.  Then he glowered.  “And it’s good for Captain Cold!  He’s not a wolf or a werewolf.  I mean, there’s probably _some_ wolf in him – like half or three quarters or something – but _were_ wolf?”

Dr. Wells smiled at him, which was weird given the situation.

Then he realized that Dr. Wells was just showing him his fangs.

“You were willing to believe that I was a vampire given very little evidence – yet you won’t even believe that a wolf is a wolf?”

Captain Cold growled and turn his large, thick body enough to be a somewhat barrier between Barry and Dr. Wells.

“I’m not going to hurt him,” Dr. Wells said, eyes rolling toward Captain Cold.  “Even though I would be well within my rights.”

Sure, Dr. Wells had a terrifying set of fangs on him.

But Captain Cold had a mouthful of sharp teeth that he flashed right back at Dr. Wells. 

“Cisco,” Dr. Wells said, turning his head toward his partner.  “You haven’t said anything.”

“I was kind of expecting it not to be true,” Cisco admitted softly.  “The whole, ‘my partner is a vampire’ thing.  Have you _really_ been drinking my blood?”

Suddenly, Dr. Wells was directly in front of Cisco and had his face framed in his hands.  Cisco yelped and tried to jump back – almost falling off of his stool – but Dr. Wells kept him firmly in place.

“You,” he whispered to Cisco, though it wasn’t a very good whisper if Barry could still hear, “are my very special boy.  I have lived through such barbaric times and yet, here you are, so clever and intelligent and _mine_.  You make is sound so crass, but, yes, in as few words, I have been feeding from you.”

“You know, there are a lot of movies where that is supposed to be sexy and intimate.”  Cisco looked a few shades paler than he had earlier.  “It’s actually just really creepy.”

“You _sustain_ me.  You nourish me.  You sate me in every physical and mental way,” Dr. Wells crooned.  Cisco’s eyes dilated.  “See?  It all depends on how you look at it.”

“I’m looking at it as an outsider,” Barry spoke up.  “And I don’t like it.”

“Mr. Allen,” Dr. Wells announced with steel running in his voice.  He turned partway so that he could pin Barry down with a very unimpressed expression.  “I am trying to salvage my relationship – the same relationship that has kept me satisfied and _placated_ the past three years.  If you would like to be somewhere else doing something else, might I suggest that you take your mongrel –”

His dog barked.

“– _Captain Cold_ for a walk and discuss the large mistake he has made of his life thus far.  Do I make myself clear, Mr. Allen?”

Captain Cold growled, but, for how confident his dog sounded, the noise still seemed weak to his ears.

Then, still glaring balefully at Dr. Wells, Captain Cold nipped at Barry’s hand and led him out of the lab. 

Barry, not sure what else to do and very confused by the turn of events, followed willingly.

“I just left my best friend alone with a vampire,” he muttered to himself, in some state of emotionless shock. 

Captain Cold led him into a different empty lab – the good thing about S.T.A.R. Labs was how many rooms it had, Barry supposed – and then stopped to stand in front of him.

There was a long, tense silence.  Barry stared at Captain Cold and Captain Cold stared coolly – not the time – back at him.

And then Captain Cold stood up on his hind legs, bones cracking, rolled his shoulders back so that they were wide and horizontal like a human’s, and then ran his claws down his chest and belly.  The marks of his claws drew long, red lines through his fur.  At the top of his groin, he stopped, grabbed each side of the cut with a paw – that had fingers?  What? – and pulled it open like a jacket instead of a skin.  And everywhere the skin opened, another layer of skin was revealed – bare skin.  Human skin.

The man who stepped out of the wolf skin was covered in a thin sheen of blood and nothing else. 

This was very out of the ordinary.

“Holy shit,” Barry whispered.  “You _are_ a wolf.”

Captain Cold smirked at him.  _Smirked_.

“Does that make you Little Red Riding Hood?” the man asked, his voice hoarse but still somehow simultaneously very sarcastic and pleasant.

“Uh…  No?”

“What a shame.”

“Not really?  I mean,” he was obviously in shock, he thought to himself, “The Wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood, right?  Her and her grandmother.  And the wolf kind of committed a ton of felonies along the way, like breaking and entering, stalking, identity theft…”

“You’re rambling, Barry.”

“You’re a _werewolf_.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“How?”

Captain Cold considered the question for a moment, then shrugged.  “Don’t know.  Born this way, I guess.”

“But you’re my _dog_.”

“Wrong, Barry.”  Captain Cold seemed to prowl toward him.  “You are _my_ human.” 

Barry stumbled back, out of arm’s reach, and Captain Cold stopped approaching. 

“Could you at least put on some pants?” Barry squeaked. 

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because the way you’re looking at me is very flattering.”

Wide-eyed and red in the face, Barry looked up.  And then he paled to ghostly white.  “You’re a werewolf.”

“We’ve established that.”

“I just can’t understand it!”

“But you were willing to believe that Harrison was a vampire?”

“Dr. Wells wasn’t my dog!”

“I was never a dog.”

“You were _my_ dog,” Barry sulked.

Something in Captain Cold’s cold – _damn it_ – expression softened exponentially.  “I can’t be your dog, Barry.”

“I figured,” he admitted in a small voice.

Captain Cold had been a strange and possibly criminal canine companion, but he had been a constant in Barry’s life, had licked his face clean of tears on the anniversary of his mother’s death, and had sat by his side while he had spoken to his father in prison.  He had slept by Barry’s side when he had had a fever and had been an annoyingly accurate alarm clock that barked at the same time every morning so that Barry wasn’t as late to work as usual.  He had walked with Barry during late nights when Barry couldn’t sleep without complaint, even when they had wandered halfway across the entire city. 

Captain Cold had made Barry’s life so much better.

The problem was that Captain Cold wasn’t a dog – wasn’t _his_ dog.  Captain Cold was a whole supernatural person and instead of freaking out, expecting to get his throat ripped out, Barry was pouting because there wouldn’t be a furry body tripping him in the middle of the night on his way to the restroom. 

Never let it be said that Captain Cold had been an asshole.

Barry had just assumed that Captain Cold was _his_ asshole.

“Tell you what,” Captain Cold began in a bargaining tone.  “We’ll get dinner together tomorrow and decide on what we can be to each other.”

Barry frowned at the other man.  “Was that…  Did you…  Did you just ask me out on a date?”

“That depends on what we decide we want to be to each other.”

“Seriously?  I just found out that my dog was a werewolf, my best friend’s boyfriend –”

“ _Dick_ ,” Captain Cold growled.

“Is a vampire, and you’re asking me out on a _date_?”

“Is that what you want it to be?”

“Are you insane?!”

“I’m not hearing a no.”

“You were my dog!”

“How many times do I have to tell you?”  Captain Cold began approaching again.  This time, Barry held his ground.

This was a bad idea.  Captain Cold was not taller than him – maybe even a hair width’s shorter than him – but Barry still somehow felt overwhelmed by him. 

“I was never your dog,” Captain Cold stated.  “Go to dinner with me tomorrow and maybe we can work something out.”

Obviously, he should run screaming in the other direction.  Werewolves and vampires didn’t exist.

Except, apparently, they did.

“Just tell me one thing,” Barry said.

“You can call me Len,” Captain Cold answered immediately which, okay, was actually good to know.  Of course his real name wouldn’t be Captain Cold.

Captain Cold had been something he and Cisco had named his dog because of the long and frigid glares he could give while maintaining a stately, ‘Better than you’ air. 

This was Len, apparently – Len, who was a werewolf. 

Len, who had the same penetrating blue eyes Captain Cold had had. 

They were the same, weren’t they?  Len and Captain Cold were the same and yet, somehow, the horror of seeing a wolf turn into a man was drowned out by the misery of having lost the privilege of ignorantly and blissfully claiming Captain Cold as his canine companion. 

Barry took a deep, fortifying breath.  “That wasn’t actually my question.”  
Len’s eyebrows drew together.  “Oh, really?”

“Really really.”

“What’s your question, then?”

Barry opened and shut his mouth a few times.  Werewolves were probably deadly, he thought.

Don’t insult the werewolf.

“Why are you such a dick?”

“What?”

Well, might as well just say what was on his mind.

“As a dog – my dog – I mean, as a wolf.  You were a fucking dick, you know that?  Especially that time you dumped your food _and_ your water on Joe’s chair.  He was wearing his good suit and you ruined it on purpose!”

“I have a thing against cops.”

“I work with the cops.”  
“But you are not a cop.”  
“I work _with_ the cops.”

“We can argue about this all night, but I’m still waiting on one answer.”

“Well, I have another question.”  
“What _is_ it, Barry?”

It felt strangely pleasing to know that he was getting on Len’s nerves.  He smiled and then let it drop away.

“What happened to you, that day we met?”

“Dr. Harrison Wells happened.  Vampires and werewolves don’t necessarily get along, especially when one of them has a weapon that shoots exploding silver bullets.”  
Barry wasn’t even surprised.  Honestly, it explained so much.

“Why did you stay?”

“You have surpassed your question limit.”  Len leaned in close so that his lips tickled Barry’s ear.  “If you would like me to answer any more questions, meet me for dinner tomorrow.”

Barry drew all of his inner strength together.  Looking over Len’s shoulder as he was, he could see the wolf fur on the ground, looking strangely soggy and also very unnerving.  It looked like a very real costume that someone had dumped on the floor and he wondered for a moment if Len had to squeeze back into it or if he would take off his human skin and a wolf would be beneath it. 

He wanted to know.

“When?” he asked.

“That is a question I _can_ answer,” Len purred. “That _and_ where.”

~::~

He had Netflix and a laptop, but they both just stared at the laptop’s background image of a thunderstorm.

Finally, Cisco stirred, fingers tapping against his elbow, arms folded over his knees.  “How’s your week been?” he asked Barry.

“I kissed my dog,” he admitted, still staring blankly at his laptop.  “Yours?”

Cisco fidgeted.  “I had sex with my vampire partner.”  He tugged at his hair.  “It was pretty awesome.”

“Oh, God.”  
Cisco gave him a concerned look.  “What?”

“I want to have sex with my dog.”  
“Oh, jeez,” Cisco groaned.  “That sounds so wrong.  He was never a dog, you know that now, right?”

“I know that, yeah,” Barry said, “but he was my dog.”

“Actually – ”

“I don’t want to hear it.”  
Cisco surrendered without a word and all was quiet again.

For about ten minutes.

Barry cleared his throat, attracting Cisco’s attention.

“I have a really weird question, but hear me out, okay?”

Cisco nodded hesitantly.

“…  Do you think he has a knot?  You know, like dogs do?”

“Damn it, Barry!  This can never be un-heard!”

“But, _seriously_?”

“I love you, man, but I will end you if you actually make me answer that.”

**Author's Note:**

> If I forgot any tags, please do not hesitate to tell me!


End file.
